Jacob
“Morning.”
Bernie throws a look over her shoulder when I walk into the kitchen.
“You look worse than you sound,” she observes dryly. “Late night?”
I rub my face with my hands, still feeling the grit in my eyes.
“You can say that again. I don’t think I got more than three hours.”
I perch a hip on one of the kitchen stools, and rest my forearms on the counter. Bernie slides a mug of coffee in front of me.
“I suppose you want breakfast?”
I manage a grin for Bernie, who is mostly bluster. She loves caring for me, and I’m not complaining. She’s the closest I’ve ever come to having a mother.
“I wouldn’t say no to a couple of eggs.”
She rolls her eyes dramatically.
“Bacon?”
“Of course.”
While Bernie goes to work on my breakfast, I sip my coffee and plan my day.
After the phone call from Onyx last night, I spent a frustrating time looking into Pegasus GLAN and Choice Racing, their agent.
I already knew Pegasus was a dead end. Set up as an LLC and hidden under several layers of dummy companies, I’d finally been able to trace it back to GLAN Industries. A familiar name by now, since that company has been linked to several cases we uncovered of despicable crimes conducted against children.
Unfortunately, GLAN Industries is a dead end itself. The address for the company is a condemned warehouse marked for demolition along the Tennessee River in Paducah. The only tangible entity connected to the company is a law firm in nearby Mayfield, but they’re not likely to reveal who their client is.
The agent acting for Pegasus GLAN, however, could be a viable source of information. At some point, someone connected to Pegasus must’ve contacted them about representation.
I spent the bulk of my time looking up everything I could on Choice Racing, until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. I’ll do some more poking around today, maybe get Pearl to do a little more in-depth research into their finances. There has to be a money trail somewhere.
A call comes in just as Bernie slides my breakfast in front of me. When I pull out my phone, she narrows her eyes on me.
“I didn’t just cook that for you to let it get cold,” she warns, as she sashays out of the kitchen to give me privacy.
She knows the drill.
Mitch’s name is displayed on my screen and I answer through the voice changer app on my phone. I put it on speaker so I can eat and talk.
“Hope you’re calling with good news.”
Mitch and Opal are helping in the search for nine-year-old Alex Crocker, who was supposed to ride his bike home from baseball practice early yesterday morning. The ball field is only two blocks from the house, and practice was over at nine. According to the coach, who saw Alex ride off on his bike, he headed in the direction of home. The boy never arrived.
“Not really. We found his bike in a gully, covered with some branches.”
“Someone trying to hide it,” I conclude. “He was taken.”
“Looks like it. I just wanted to give you an update, since it looks like this is a little more involved than locating a missing child.”
“Was CARD called in?”
CARD is the FBI’s Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team Mitch used to belong to. We frequently work side by side or in concert with the team, which is headed by Matt Driver.
“They’re en route.”
“Good. Keep me up to date.”
“Will do. Opal is worried about leaving Onyx without support though.”
“I’ve got Onyx. You guys focus on finding Alex.”
I finish my breakfast and take my dishes to the sink when Bernie returns and bumps me out of the way. I move to the coffeepot to refill my cup to take to my office.
“That didn’t sound good.”
I glance over at Bernie, who is purposely not looking my way as she washes my few dishes.
It doesn’t surprise me she overheard, and it doesn’t really matter, I trust her implicitly. It’s not like she doesn’t already know the kind of work GEM does, but she rarely—if ever—talks about it.
“It isn’t. Looks like someone made an attempt to hide the boy’s bike.”
She shakes her head.
“It never ceases to amaze me the kind of evil that’s out there.”
“That’s why we do what we do, Bernie.”
“And noble as your crusade is, I worry about you. You are your work. You have no downtime, no social interaction whatsoever, and no personal life.”
“You know why that is.”
Bernie is the only person in the world who does. She was there when I had to claw myself back from the edge, patiently waiting for me to battle back my demons. Calmly stood by as I got my life together, and encouraged me when the idea for GEM was born.
She also has no problem calling me out when she sees fit.
This, apparently, is one of those times.
“That’s not healthy, J,” she states with a concerned look on her face. “There is no reason why you can’t continue the important work you do, and have a life at the same time. We’re only granted one.”
“Don’t you worry about me, Bernie.” I put a hand on her shoulder and bend down to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m doing fine.”
That’s my way of saying back off.
It’s been difficult enough to live this life of hiding, of secrecy and deceit. I’ve second-guessed myself many times in recent years, but unless and until every loose end is tied up, this is the way it needs to be.
Grabbing my coffee, I head for the office, when I hear Bernie mutter behind me.
“Bullshit.”
“I’ll work on it when I can.”
“That’s all I can ask.”
With Onyx getting the farm in order, Pearl is the only one in the office and already has her hands full providing support for Mitch and Opal. Time is ticking for Alex Crocker, so our focus has to be on him.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t have someone doing a little probing for me.
“Pearl, do you know if Lee is currently busy with something?”
Her significant other, Lee Remington, is a freelance reporter whose investigations into Transition House and its sordid legacy have run parallel to my own. His motivations differ from mine, but our objectives are the same.
Like I did with Mitch, I offered Lee a place with GEM, but he declined. I get it, he has his own path to follow, but he did convey a willingness to work with us on a consultancy basis.
“I don’t think he’s actively working on a story. He was dropping his daughter off at her mother’s place this morning, but he should be home by now. Why don’t you give him a call?”
“I will.”
Lee is home, and doesn’t have anything pressing on his schedule when I ask.
“What do you need?”
“I wonder if I can interest you in doing an article on an exclusive thoroughbred auction? At least pretend to?”
“Is this connected to David Wheeler?”
“Pegasus GLAN is listed as the owner of one of the horses up for auction.”
“The same company listed as Pure Delight’s owner. Hell yes, I’m in.”
I catch him up on the information we have available so far, and forward him a digital copy of the auction catalog.
“It’s at Drake Stables? As in Peter Drake?” Lee wants to know.
“That would be the one,” I confirm. “Do you know him?”
“I interviewed him once, briefly, right after his horse won the Derby.”
“That might come in handy.”
At least it could provide a point of connection for Lee to get a foot in the door. He knows better than anyone how to get people to talk, and no one has reason to suspect a journalist asking probing questions. It’s par for the course.
“What I’d like to know is, has there ever been a representative of Pegasus GLAN at any of Arion’s Moon’s races. That’s the filly’s name. Apparently, she had good results in her first racing year, so there may be photographs or video of the race or from the winner’s circle. And also, is any representative supposed to be at the auction? I would imagine the agent, Choice Racing, might know. If you can get a name, or a face, even better.”
Lee chuckles.
“You don’t ask much, do you?”
“We’re close, Remington. I can feel it. We need to finesse this. He gets one sniff of someone looking at him twice, and he’ll crawl right back under that rock he came from. We won’t find him again.”
“You know I won’t fuck this up,” Lee promises, suddenly dead serious. “That bastard was responsible for my mother’s death. I want him as badly as you do.”
Remington’s mother was part of the housekeeping staff at Transition House. She was killed in a car wreck. Police at the time ruled it as an accident, but Lee had good reason to doubt that ruling. Back then the Lanark PD was about as corrupt as can be, and we’ve since discovered its chief was complicit in the atrocities that took place at the home.
“I know you do. I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise.”
I feel good about Lee’s involvement. The more information he can dig up, the better it is. I’d feel better if I could send Onyx into that auction prepared for what—or whom—she might encounter.
She answers on the second ring.
“Jacob?”
I close my eyes and breathe in through my nose. It happens every time I hear her voice, that tightness in my chest.
Sweet torture.
“I brought Lee on. He’s going to do a little digging for us.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea. People expect a journalist to stick his nose where it doesn’t necessarily belong.”
“Right. Well, I just wanted to give you a heads-up.”
“I appreciate it. Hey, by the way, have you heard anything about that missing boy?”
Of course she would ask that. I was hoping to avoid that topic, I don’t want her distracted.
“They found his bike under some branches in a ditch.”
I hear her inhale sharply. “Oh no. Any leads on who might’ve taken him?”
“They’re working on it.”
“If you need me to—” she starts, but I cut her off.
“What I need is for you to focus on your case.”
I realize that may have come across a bit curt.
“So noted,” she asserts before I have a chance to apologize.
Then she promptly hangs up on me.
Again.